Subodh Gupta’s Vessels Within Vessels

Subodh Gupta’s three oils form a triptych of ‘Untitled’ works that seem to be studies of a frying pan and a vessel within a vessel. From a distance it has a cosmic flavour, come closer and you see the indentations on the metal. Littered with a litany of references of past and present experiences, they swing from significant information to seemingly mundane motifs.

Drawing mainly from everyday objects and scenarios, Gupta’s aesthetic delineates the complex inter-relations of India’s urban and rural communities. It shows the effects of consumerism and the modernization of traditional Indian society. Gupta’s ‘Untitled’ (Sculpture) 2018 is a large brass handi with a brass lota inside – a continuation of his series on the inimitable vessel that finds a tenor in the poetry of Kabir.

Gauri Gill’s Acts of Appearance

Gauri Gill’s most recent body of work, Acts of Appearance, is a series of vivid color photographs for which the artist worked closely with members of an Adivasi community in Jawhar district, Maharashtra, India. Gill’s collaborator-subjects are renowned for their papier-mâché objects, including traditional sacred masks. In these pictures they engage in everyday village activities while wearing new masks, made expressly for this body of work, which depict living beings with the physical characteristics of humans, animals, or valued objects. A range of scenarios and narratives, situated in both “reality” and dreamlike states, come together in the photographs, which simultaneously portray symbolic or playful representations as well as the familiar experiences of community members against the backdrop of their home and culture.

In Rajasthan, among her Jogi friends, during the festival of Holi, Gill had first encountered people casually wearing store-bought masks to play-act and assume various personas as part of the fun of the festival. In Maharashtra, she learned of the Bahora procession, held once a year in many Adivasi villages, in which the entire village participates in a ritual performance over several nights to enact a mythological tale. The Bahora masks take weeks to make, are sacred and consecrated, and constitute a moral and imaginative universe, but they also conform to strict rules of creation as they represent powerful archetypes refined over generations of storytelling.

The performers are chosen from among the residents and wear elaborate masks made by artists to represent different gods, demons, and ancillary figures. In the course of each story, which is as codified as it is improvisatory and has many twists and turns, the good must vanquish the evil.